Explore the green gourmet paradise of Galicia

Where the world once ended and the ocean begins, the waves crash against the cliffs with indomitable force. The territory of death-defying divers begins from Cape Finisterre, along the steep coast of death, where sharp-edged rocks lurk beneath the spray, invisible to sailors over many centuries who lost first their ships and then their lives in the Atlantic. From the cliffs, the percebeiros pick the delicacies of the sea, button-sized barnacles that later end up in the best restaurants in the country. Armed only with a kind of pickaxe, the divers sometimes jump from rubber dinghies which can manoeuvre right up to the rugged rocky coast; other times they shimmy down ropes into the roaring surf. Those who are successful with their harvest later sell their wares at markets, where connoisseurs pay up to €300 for a kilo. But sometimes the ocean strikes, taking those who have not been lucky and spits them out again hundreds of kilometres further east.